Developer experience · Observational longitudinal mining of GitHub issues/commits; value classification and Granger-causality analysis.

Predicting open source contributor turnover from value-related discussions

Peer-reviewed research · 2023

Jack Jamieson, Eureka Foong, Naomi Yamashita

Original paper ↗

Summary

Respectfulness-related discussion predicted increased departures and fewer newcomers; social-power discussion predicted better retention.

For your marketing

Possible founder application

Monitor discourse health and intervene on recurring value conflicts; treat moderation as retention infrastructure.

Reported result

What the study found

Respectfulness-related discussion predicted increased departures and fewer newcomers; social-power discussion predicted better retention.

Research question

What the authors investigated

Which value-related discussions predict subsequent contributor inflow and outflow?

Design

Observational longitudinal mining of GitHub issues/commits; value classification and Granger-causality analysis.

Sample and setting

Logs from 52 Decentralized Web projects sharing ethical commitments.

Scope and transfer

Limitations to keep in view

The setting is 52 ethically aligned DWeb projects, so transfer to other OSS domains is uncertain; observational prediction is not proof of causation.

Research sources

Publisher/authoritative landing page and abstract/full text fetched: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597503.3623340 Firecrawl research job 01a14366-d263-71d0-bc44-b95482987b7b returned this citation and metadata.

Study strength

3.5/5 Abstract-level evidence is useful for framing questions; verify full methods before transfer.

How this was assessed

The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.

Design transparency · 2/2

Based on the reported study design in the retrieved source.

Sample and setting · 1/1

The sample context is stated; a numerical count is preserved only when reported.

Outcome clarity · 1/1

The finding is summarized from publisher or article metadata.

Access for checking · 0.5/1

Only abstract or bibliographic access was confirmed.

Double-blind? The retrieved publisher record does not establish whether participants or outcome assessors were blinded.